The aims of this three-year plan of research are twofold: (1) to test the measurement invariance of major cognitive abilities and factors of shyness across time and diverse samples drawn in the U.S.A. and (2) to examine the empirical basis for hypotheses specifying relationships among cognitive abilities, shyness, and schooling. The aims of the proposed research thus are to provide information about whether measures thought to be indicative of central features of intelligence in Western societies are indeed measuring the same things within these societies. In addition, this research will provide information about the relationships between shyness and cognitive development--in particular hypotheses specifying that shyness and/or particular forms of shyness show different patterns of relationships to fluid reasoning, crystallized knowledge, short-term working memory, and retrieval from long-term storage. (In the future, perhaps as postdoctoral work, the goal will be to fulfill the above listed aims using samples drawn in Ghana.)